Isolationist Trends Protect US From Reality – Buy American?

Radicals, in countries doing global business, encourage boycotts of foreign products.  That’s just great.  With world support systems shrinking with human population explosion,  autonomy is not an option.  Taken seriously or not, “Buy American” or “Buy Canadian” etc., is a loosing proposition. Everyday demonstrates how humans intrude upon each other’s space by polluting common areas like air, water, dwelling space and agricultural space.

Extreme isolationists have historic roots that demonstrate failure to produce the results promised.  Isolationists and Protectionists have embraced the sanitized history of their fore fathers and deluded themselves they can recreate that ‘Imaginary, Illusive’ Utopia, Shangri La, Shambhala, Valhalla, Garden of Eden, El Dorado, Xanadu, Zion, Hyperborea, Atlantis, Aztlán, or even the Republic of Texas.

Texas  was once a country, couldn’t make it in the 10 years it existed, and had to join the more powerful nation surrounding it.  Pride in once being its own country has blinded some radicals  to fantasize about seceding from its host country and becoming independent again.  Great idea, if you seek living in the early 1800s again.  Governor Rick Perry has irresponsibly encouraged Texas extremists to dream louder about secession.   The idea of “Buy Texan” is nothing more than a fantasy game.  Texas exports almost all its products to survive.  Texas imports products that keep it in the 21st century.  Texas ‘wheeler dealers’ would be very ‘out of business’ if the doors were closed to the USA gateway to world markets.  

Globalization is a reality.  Survival for the human species depends on it.  Cults of isolationists, Dogma driven Cults and fantasy driven ‘proud’ territorialist cults are dwindling but extremely animated about withdrawing into their protective shell.  These extremists are found everywhere.  Things were always better long ago, because history has been sanitized to give today’s radical  a warm fuzzy about how their ancestors managed to have a perfect life ‘without global interference’. Protectionism, on the surface, has a noble agenda of making all things equal. Conspiracy Theorists love to threaten that globalization is a grand conspiracy promoted by evil multinational corporations.  Globalization takes into account that this planet is shrinking and cannot adapt to cancerous human behavior.   There is always the “Third Way” (Centrism), that consolidates all extreme positions and waters them down to the point of balance … stability.

PROTECTIONISM; The proper use of government power to:  (1) protect the nation from any unfair, institutional foreign interference in the peaceful voluntary cooperation in the  division of labor of its citizens;

(2) establish taxes on foreign importation as a system of providing a major source  of revenue for the general operating expenses of the national government.
(Derived from the laws of free market economics.)

Some Things American Protectionism Is NOT, and has NEVER been:
(1) isolationist.  The United States was a protectionist nation from 1789 through at least 1970.  At no time was the  United States isolated from the world.  It was independent and self sufficient, but not isolated.

(2) socialist.  American Protectionism defends the market system within the national borders of the United States and prevents  interference in the internal free market economic system.

Canadian mayors pass anti-‘Buy American’ resolution

The Peril of ‘Buy American’

Canadians angered over “Buy American” rule

“Buy American” provision in House climate bill

Canada threatens US with ‘Don’t Buy American’

That ‘Buy American’ Provision

“Buy American” is a familiar cry in Washington, even though the vast majority of American economists and policy makers oppose anything that hints at protectionism. President Obama has said that “we can’t send a protectionist message,” and the Senate softened a buy-American provision in the stimulus bill it passed by stipulating that any government procurement policies comply with World Trade Organization rules. But business interests argued that the language favoring American producers should have been removed altogether.

Why is the buy-American idea objectionable, or, alternatively, under what circumstances should it be promoted?

Robert E. Scott, Economic Policy Institute,  Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and law,  Roger Simmermaker, author and local union official,  Burton Folsom Jr., historian,  Ha-Joon Chang, an economist,  Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Peterson Institute for International Economics,  Sherrod Brown, Democratic senator,  Anne Krueger, professor of international economics

World Affairs

Isolationism refers to America’s longstanding reluctance to become involved in European alliances and wars. Isolationists held the view that America’s perspective on the world was different from that of European societies and that America could advance the cause of freedom and democracy by means other than war.

American isolationism did not mean disengagement from the world stage. Isolationists were not averse to the idea that the United States should be a world player and even further its territorial, ideological and economic interests, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.

Real Politics.png

WikiCommons:  Emilfaro A civilization has a common culture and a certain level of development.Electric lamps appeare more than a century ago and the modern civilization is unimaginable without them. So the electric light can help us to define the borders of today civilizations and the links between them. Political borders have little to do with civilizations, but to define some civilization regions some borders can be seen in alphabets, languages, religions, trade agreements, and history.

1. Africa — ACP countries, de facto colonies; lights are mainly seen in South Africa.
2. America — North American Union; influences Latin American countries, which are separated by the Amazon river.
3. Arabia — League of Arab States; Ottoman Empire (till 1923).
4. Australia — Pacific Islands Forum; separated from the UK and the US by vast distances.
5. Brazil — Union of South American Nations; Brazil has more population, than neighbours.
6. China — Qing Dynasty (till 1912); has close links with Japan and Korea.
7. Europe — European Union; UK has close links leaving Alglosphere in the past.
8. India — South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; British Raj (till 1947); has influence on the ASEAN.
9. Nippon — Association of Southeast Asian Nations; Great Imperial Japan (till 1945).
10. Russia — Commonwealth of Independent States; Soviet Union (till 1991); looks like a bridge.

There are far too many regional organizations today, and they overlap. So there can be no distinct civilization regions today. So some day the World could be one civilization formed by the United Nations.

Great post by sodahead.com: No, not made in America

Wiki: Globalization

Henry Kissinger:    Globalization and its discontents

Wiki:  Globalization and Its Discontents

Wiki:  New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Then of course we cannot forget Moral Rearmament (Defunct Christian Organization) … the greatest global conspiracy of the past century! It’s offspring Initiatives of Change, is the current incarnation of the same old agenda.  All these conspiracies are great fun, unless you take them seriously.  Whether some ancestor had the enlightenment to see humanity outliving the world’s ability to support them, globalization is the only life raft that is left.

We can, of course, muddle on the way we are and perish in small comfortable tribes, isolated and bound by  common delusion.